Water Color Layers

1. Problem: How to separate different layers of colored water

using salt
based on density concept?
2. Hypothesis: Lower layer will have more salt than the upper
layer because the more the salt is, the higher the density will
be. If the density is higher it will sink.
3. Materials:
100ml Water
5 Food coloring
500g salt
2 Beaker glass (150ml)
1 Petri dish
1Measuring cylinder (100ml)
1 Dropper
1Electronic balance
1Metal spatula
4.

Method:
1) Measure the salt on a petri dish. Spoon the salt with the
metal spatula and measure with the electronic balance (2g)
2) Then pour the salt onto the water that is in the beaker
glass(water 20ml)
3) Dissolve the salt in the water
4) Drop 4 drops of food coloring into the water and stir until it
is all mixed up
5) Pour the colored water into the measuring cylinder
6) Measure again 1.5g salt into a petri dish, spoon the salt
with the metal spatula and measure with the electronic
balance
7) Pour the salt into 20ml of water
8) Dissolve the salt again
9) Drop another 4 drops of food coloring with a different color
10) Take the dropper and drop the water carefully into the
measuring cylinder so it will not mix
11) Measure again 1g salt into a petri dish, spoon the salt
with the metal spatula and measure with electronic balance
again
12) Pour the salt into 20ml of water
13) Dissolve the salt again
14) Drop another 4 drops of food coloring with a different
color
15) Take the dropper and drop the water carefully so it will
not mix
16) Repeat the step (1-10) again but with different amount
of salt (0.5g&0g) and with different color.

5.

Data collection and analysis:

This data below are collected on our 3rd trial. The 1st and the
2nd trial we had too much salt. So we tried again with different
method and we were able to made 5 color layers.
Table 1. Result of water color layer with different density due to
various amount of salt in 20mL of water
Lay
Amount of salt
Volume of water
Density
er
Color
(gram)
(mL)
(gram/mL)
1
Blue
2.00
20
1.10
Gree
2
n
1.50
20
1.08
Yello
3
w
1.00
20
1.05
Oran
4
ge
0.50
20
1.03
5
Red
0.00
20
1.00
The densities of our water layers are plotted into a graph

Graph1. The Density (gram/mL) of colored water layer with different height
1.12
1.10
1.08
1.06
1.04
Density (gram/mL) 1.02
1.00
0.98
0.96
0.94

Level of the water layer

6. Discussion: trend of the data, scientific concept that explain the

trend
Graph 1 shows that as the height of a layer getting higher its
density decreases. The difference in density of the first and next

color layer was about 0.025 gram/mL and the density difference
from the first to the last color is same. The total difference between
the bottom layer and the upper layer is 1.10 gram/mL.
This trend can be explained using the scientific called density.
Density is the mass per unit volume. As more the salt was added to
the water color, the density of water layer increased. This is because
of the salt molecules make the water molecules more dense. Liquid
that has higher density will occupy lower space than the lower one.
This case of density can be seen from a piece of wood that floats
and a bar of metal that sinks in the water because wood has a lower
density than water, while metal has higher density than water.

7. Evaluation: weakness of the method, source of errors

The method of this experiment had a weakness. The height of
each color was not the same because some water color mixed with
other color. This seems to be caused by liquid dropping method that
too fast. So in the future, the dropper should be attached to the top
of the measuring cylinder wall.
The errors in the experiment could come from the liquid that
we dropped too fast so it made the color mix a little. The yellow
color mixed with the green it made the yellow color to light green.
Next time we need to drop the liquid slowly.
8. Conclusion: answer of your research question -> is your
hypothesisis supported or not and suggestion for futher research.
From our experiment data, it can be concluded that the
hypothesis is supported. The different layers of liquid could be
created by adding different amount of salt to each layer. The more
salt added to the water the higher its density would be and made
the layer stayed at the lower part compared to the water that was
added by less amount of salt.
For further research it is suggested to use different kind of
liquid for each layer or use different things like sugar not salt to
creatthe water layer. Sugar could create more layers as it doesnt
cause saturation as the salt in making a solution.
Works Cited
Density and Pressure. BBC Higher Bitesize Physics. BBC, 2014.
Web. 23 June2016.